Surface Pro struts its stuff on video. Looks hot.

Promotional videos can be really awesome or really cheesy. This new one for the Surface Pro falls in the middle. It doesn’t offer any of the heavy bass drops from the dubstep intro for the first Surface, but it does highlight some of the compelling features of the Surface Pro. Check it out.

Not a flashy ad, but it does tick off some of the features that set the Surface Pro apart from other tablets. The emphasis was definitely on productivity over consumption. Clever of them to highlight the ability to charge a USB device from the power brick and the pen with Photoshop. Two little tricks that most tablets like the iPad or Nexus 7 can’t really compete with. I think the goal was to show this is more than just a tablet, it’s a full blown PC.

Videos like this aren’t meant to be shown on traditional TV ads, it runs at an attention deficit busting 1 minute and 24 seconds. It’s mostly meant for people doing researching Surface Pro online, it could also do well with those ads that you’re shown before a movie starts at a theatre.

With the Surface Pro coming out in a little over two weeks, we’ll probably see more advertising as that date approaches. Any of you thinking of picking one up?

One thing I noted in RT version is that microSDXC isnt treated the same as onboard storage when it comes to storing photos and music. What this means is that you have to resort to trickery such as mount points to get some of the Windows Apps to see any data you want to see there. Adding the microSDXC disk alone to a media library for indexing isnt enough. Unless they fix that odd behavior, I'd strongly recommend getting the largest capacity you can afford.

It's the same on any version of Windows. Not sure why Microsoft decided to handle removable storage like this. USB hard drives are affected by this and can easily be added to libraries where as removable storage such as flash drives and SD cards cannot.... without trickery as you mentioned.

That is a steal. My only concern is battery life and whether I should wait for the refresh with better battery and touchscreens. That's the model I'm interested in though so it's tempting. I wouldn't mind a full 8GBs of RAM and the dedicated graphics either so I may hold out.

I am only looking for ultrabooks, notebooks, etc if it is also touchscreen. The Surface Pro has me interested, wish it was under 1000 (with touch cover and memory option) and the lenova yoga 13, or lenova ideapad ultrabook appear to be good options. Anyone think otherwise or have a recommendation? I can wait a month or two if something will be released in the next few months that is worth waiting for.

While my heart says "yes!", my bank account says "NO!". I think if I used my tax return on this instead of saving for a wedding, my fiance would kill me and I'd never get to enjoy it. If only there was a way to get this on a registry...

Here is what I do to my wife sometimes.
I buy an expensive widget of some sort, for lets say $400. Then I come home show my wife right away. She immediately says "How much was that?"
My response " $1200."
"WHAT!!!!!" I let her rail for a little bit than I say "Well your about to be very happy, it only cost about $400!"
It doesn't really change her mood that much but I get a kick out of it.... how am I still married?

Lol, she's still with you because she has a good sense of humor? If my husband did that to me I'd be like "What? I hope you got one for me too.". That's what happens when technology junkies get married.

Hilarious...im in a similar situation. We had to put our dog down unfortunately, and agreed we would not get another. Lo and behold, that didn't last long, and wife was sad and she wanted another. So I said if you get a dog, I get a Surface...she agreed. Can't wait for Feb 9 :)

Hopefully they stop doing those bad high energy fast commercials where you can't even see what the surface does. Almost as if they want to hide how to use a surface. Highlight the features and abilities clearly and effectively. No need for dance revolution

While we don't like the Surface RT commercials I think a lot of the tween croud does. Not that they are buying these devices but I think MS wants to be in that 'hip' market place that Apple is/was associated with.

Most purchasors of tablets surprisingly don't buy one with a cellular service and of those that do very few actually activate the service. Those who want a cellular service after buying a tablet purchase a cellular USB key. With the Surface you have this option and the benefit of buying this is you get the best deal at the time of purchase and can upgrade to the latest cellular speed without needing a new tablet.

I enjoy my RT everyday and is enough for what I do on a tablet. Surface Pro for me is a little too much for my taste of a tablet; spec wise (size, weight, heat, etc) as well as money wise. But I love Windows 8 Pro, so I upgraded my Desktop and laptop with the $39.99 deal running these days.

I have to have it my music program require 1080p im curently using a 1600by900 and its is frustrating. Dont know how it will be on a screen that size but cant wait to see as it would be great to be truely mobile.

I was at that point when the Surface came out. I work in the IT industory and I had a 3 year old laptop at work running Windows 7 and a Xoom at home for browing the web accessing emails Streaming video and the odd bits.
After seeing the Seurface RT I decided that I would take a chance at getting the RT version and so far I have not missed anything that my Laptop at work dose everything I use is covered by the RT or there is an app for it.
I have now stopped taking my Laptop home as my surface RT can do everything I need it to do when I am at home like VPN into customers servers, Remote desktop onto there PCs/Servers access to my work email and I have a Sky drive account for all my personal data and a Box account with all my work data so I can open Excel, Word, One Note ect documents I use at work from my surface at home.
I also links well with my 2011 Home server the only thing missing is backing it up which I would be able to do with the pro version.

For me Im glad of the choice I made the Surface screen looks very good the media access is amazing and it has replaced my Xoom and Laptop at home as it is really the complete device. For me the Pro is s step up from the RT but I only see a plus to it if you are going to be using it for hevy work and gaming. To me For just using Word Excel VPN ect the RT will do a very good job and so far after having it for a week I have not had any issues or not managed to find a program to get somthing I do in my day to day job.

We are all different but I can say to most home users dont get an Ipad Get a Surface to replace your home pc and instead of a Ipad/Android and the same for any one who is just the odd user of Office and Email and anyone who is looking for a powerful tablet for work get a Surface Pro as this will do everything your work pc will do and has the Added advantage of running full programs of Photo Shop, Auto Cad ect.

The $39.99 upgrade deal is a great offer and it allows you to add Windows Media Centre for free (an add on option in the web page)!

However I need Surface Pro for only one reason. The mail app on the RT whilst good is not good enough for me as a mail/contacts/diary power user (I use all the bells and whistles in MS Outlook) and omiting MS Outlook on the RT for me pushes me to the pro. I might still buy an RT for the kids and wife however.

This will sell... It is very well made and a very nice Hybrid (Tablet / Notebook) that can do very many things with. It is also less expensive to own than a iPad plus a notebook as you need only one device.

I already bought a Lenovo Yoga 13. Don't have much use for the pen, and needed the ability to upgrade the RAM and storage (although, I haven't quite hit the storage, yet). 8GB of RAM for a few bucks more and the ability to add another 256GB mSATA drive were enough to get my attention to a Win8 device.

I've just bought an i5 Ivy Bridge Asus S400 touch-screen ultrabook. Whilst it doesn't have the pen input it does have plenty of RAM and disc and I get 6-7 hours continuous use out of a single charge. Oh, and it cost £550. That's value!

My belief is that if you need a keyboard you should have it with you all the time because you don't always know whenyou may need it. Carrying around something that adds that much weight and requires you to attach it and detach it to use in tablet or keyboard mode is not as convenient as the surface solution. It's light and always there whilst being functional and almost invisible. That and the ports with full windows 8 capability is why I am going with the Surface pro.

And in my opinion the Yoga is amazing, upgradeable, and the screen is perfect. The 1600x900 screen is gorgeous and I can't imagine a 1920x1080 screen on a 10 inch device... my eyes would bleed. The keyboard doesn't feel funny to me and I have never had it get gunky... but maybe thats becuase I dont try to clean up cereal with it...

Heya, I love the Surface Pro, looks sleek (for what it is), powerful, well specced. The are a few things that are making me hesitant.
First thing is the screen size, I use a 15" notebook right now so I'm worried it'll feel tiny in comparison, I know I can use an external monitor, but currently I sling my Toshiba Sattelite in my rucksack and can go to the library and be really productive.
The second is using the type/touch covers, which one is better? Also I'm worried that if I'm using the Surface on a train as the tables are too small, the cover will overhang and because of the weight distribution typing on it will be awful.
As a student I guess I guess I need to justify the expense, I know the pen features will be awesome for doccuments and it'll be great to have tablet functionality I just need a bit of convincing! If anyone could give me advice that would be great.

What type of work are you going to do on it? design work or simply typing? If it´s the latter you should not have any problems in being productive without the need of a bigger monitor. I will buy one for photoshop while outside the house, although I realise that with a 10 inch screen it won´t be perfect but more than good enough for quick photos touch ups.
With regards to the touch/type covers it all depends on personal preference. Touch is extremelly thin but takes some getting used to while the type feels better to type on (pretty much as good as a normal laptop keyboard) but its sligtly thicker (and does not look as good or have adicional colours to choose from other than black). I would say if you do a lot of typing go for the type cover, otherwise stick with the touch cover.
With regards to using it on the train i don´t know how small these tables are but I find it hard to believe that the keyboard will overhang and that you will have any problem typing on it. Besides you can type on your lap (despite what some idiotic reviewers say)

Regarding touch or type cover just pop into a retailer and try them out. I did that a few times and got up to speed with the type cover very quickly. So I am settled on the tocuh cover (and I type A LOT). It is only about 15% less efficient than the standard touch keyboard for me. At the end of the day its down to your personal experience.

I'm doing law and political Sci with a bit of marketting thrown in there for good measure, I want to sell my viao w8 net book for it :) but knowing ms NZ we will never get the surface so will have to go eBay or elsewhere haha :)

Well, it all depends what your needs are. I bought mine for when I go to college (senior in high school at the moment) for note taking and media consumption and whatnot, especially since the battery life is great. But if you need it for other purposes, such as Photoshop or something, then I'd recommend the Pro. Or buy both, whatever floats your boat ;)

I would go for the pro if you can afford it because at Uni you will be creating content and there may be apps you need to have which are not available on RT. I know my kids are being told to buy iPads for their school and there are lots of iOS apps they need to use. These do not exist on RT but may exist on Pro as there are millions of native windows apps out there.

I got the RT for university studies. It seems your studies too are mostly just text-heavy, so I figure RT would suffice. I study theology, so I dont need special legacy software or need much graphs or something that would greatly benefit from digital inking.
I think the better battery life of RT is worth a lot more to me than the few things the Pro would add. At home I can use remote desktop on the RT and use legacy apps all the same on Surface.
While Pro is sexy, I'm sure RT is better for my needs while on the go.

I bought an RT Surface to try out the form factor and love it. Now I have to decide if I want to go pro and give the RT to the wife, or buy an ultra book with a bigger screen and keep the RT for lighter travel

Great news! I can finally get one soon.... but who's in charge of naming things at MS? "Surface Windows 8 Pro" What the *&^#%%? Just call it the surface Pro & be done with it. When the Surface phone comes out cal it the Surfcae Phone & not the Surface windows phone 8.... Now which color keyboard to get......?

Really wanting forward to the professional, are holding out as i want the bequest support to run graphics programs on that like illustrator/photoshop. Hopefully it will hadle it otherwise i'd ought to think about the samsung/asus alternatives that may have i7 and probably additional ram tho' the pen input in addition as palm rejection of the surface may be a very nice price add. http://tiny.cc/4ztarw

Surface RT was really disappointing for me when I saw it in person. Way too small for writing on MS Word which was my biggest concern. This is really a good tablet for media consumption and browsing the web. Also the weight and build quality is amazing. But I'll save my money and buy a high end Windows 8 touchscreen laptop when I can

I don't really understand why people are so excited about this. It's just a tablet PC with Windows 8 on it. I have an old Motion Computing tablet that I put Windows 8 on, and it has more storage, memory, and can support any cellular card you want.
Plus, I'm running windows 8 on two other systems at work. It is broken for the most part. The apps aren't fully fleshed out, Windows 7 applications constantly have issues, and even media center won't work with my ceton tuner card.
I suggest waiting for SP1. Then fork out $1k for this.
Just my opinion though. To each their own.

Yes, someone whose run Windows 8 on a tablet, laptop, and desktop since September saying that it needs bake time is trolling.

I didn't say the surface or windows 8 sucked. I'm saying that the excitement seems unwarranted since the technology has been around for years, and that windows 8 has some growing pains that will be fixed with a service pack (Like every version of Windows ever). By the time SP1 comes out the surface will be cheaper, and it will almost certainly work more smoothly. I test products for a living, and this is my opinion. Buy one if you want, but don't cry because someone suggests waiting.

Nothing annoys me more than someone who acts like any criticism is an attack. It's ridiculous.

64GB is MORE than enough for me. People made the same claim about the RT, and I got the 32gb and I have never came even remote close to filling it. I will do the same thing with my Pro that I did with my RT, put my 64GB SDXC in it and keep stuff on it. I also use a My Book Live to access files.
I don't plan on installing a lot of hardcore games on it. That's what my desktop is for.

The stylus can make or break this. It's great that it uses an active digitizer which showcases what Windows has been able to do for ages that no one else has been able to replicate that well, that is inking. The downside, this isn't Wacom so support better be spot on from Microsoft on this. I'd like to know more details like is that pen battery powered (the magnets look like the same for the power adapter, maybe double as a charging connection when snapped to the Surface), this'll add weight thats why, also how precise is it. All digitizers aren't that accurate towards the edges due to technological challenges, so I wonder how Microsoft addresses this.
Honestly though, this is what a real TabletPC should be.

If I remember correclty the "media" did the same with Vista and three years later were the same people petioning MS to continue support for Vista. Regardless the expectation is not so high that anyone at MS believes it will sell more than surface than ipads which the 'media' will compare it too. Some of the worst articles are from blatant fanboys who make a point to write negative anything MS. It is even more dispicable reading a review on a W8 device that is written such basically proving to anyone who used W8 that they never used it much, I also found out one reviewer own stock in apple. See the problem here?

At this time I am leaning toward the Lenovo Twist. If you shop directly on Lenovo's site you can get a 4GB i3 320GB HD for $746. I am planning on getting the 8GB i7 for $890. Best deal I have seen so far for a tablet convertible.